This is Valentine’s Day. I can remember, as a child, dreading February 14th. My stomach would churn during the night and I’d think of excuses to skip school. It wasn’t that I didn’t love the parties where the room mothers brought cupcakes at the end of the day. That was the fun part. The segment of Valentine Day that I hated was the actual exchange of valentines.
The teacher would put up a large white envelope for each pupil with the names neatly printed in block letters. The envelopes were usually thumb tacked in alphabetical order on a bulletin board accentuated with red hearts backed by white paper doilies.
At the appointed time, classmates would put the valentines addressed the night before into the individual pouches. Back then, there were no equality rules. You gave valentines to whom you liked and skipped those you didn’t. I always feared having only two or three valentines from my best girlfriends and none from the boys. How humiliating life could be. Sin starts early I suppose. Once, in fifth grade, I addressed a few extra valentines to myself to be sure the envelope wouldn’t be empty.
Looking back on those memorable days, it seems strange that even the boys gave boys valentines. When I became a schoolteacher myself, I always stressed to the children that if anybody got a valentine, everybody got a valentine.
Not too long ago I ran across a small, dilapidated cardboard box full of old valentines. I don’t remember the particular class or school, but there they were. I laughed myself silly reading them:
“Can I borrow your library card? I want to check you out.”
“A question for you, Valentine. “Which country makes Panama
hats? Ecuador, of course!”
My favorite was, “Will you be my Valentine?” On the inside was scribbled, “Please let me know soon as I have someone else in mind.”
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nancyk@alltel.net https://www.angelfire.com/bc/nancykelly
